High school senior needs a real-world smackdown

aye — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:14:29 -0800

I'm a 12th grade senior in a public high school and live in a town where over 95% of graduates go to college. Can I get away with not going? Spare the politeness and call out my 17-year-old naivete. Some lengthy text follows, sorry in advance. I attend two schools: a big high school (just for AP classes) and an independent study program, where I go weekly to turn in and discuss homework. Big High School is very education and music-oriented, where parents regularly push their students to overload their schedule with 4-6 AP classes yearly. The independent study program is mellow, open-ended, and an introvert haven. I'm an introvert but a skilled conversationalist, with enough close friends. This arrangement leaves me with a lot of free time to pursue my interests at home.

My interests are mainly programming and photography. A few years back, I wrote most of a large cross-platform software package that occasionally appears in scientific journals. I can get production sites up in Python/Django in very little time. I code pretty stylesheets and work around IE6 bugs. I sysadmin and solve almost any problem on Linux, Windows 2000/XP/2003, or OS X.

I've been spending a third of my free time on DSLR photography this past year. A few of my photos got re-printed in small magazines, but usually not for artistic value. A lot of the programming and photography employment I see nowadays is based solely on prior work. Will the majority of employers still demand that I have a college degree?

I'm getting to the question, I promise. I live in a university town. My parents are academics. I've talked to professors on campus and visited plenty of other universities. I find most of the academia boring - (generalizing here) bleak, unprofessional, slow as molasses, with TAs and occasionally boring professors lecturing undergrads in large lecture halls. The socializing aspect doesn't interest me much either (I'm not into alcohol, I'd have to dodge every party). Four years is an eternity to me and the tuition/housing costs are crazy. I would never take Computer Science as an undergrad because it would be a colossal waste of time. But I'm easily willing to take specific university classes later in my life.

My parents are reasonable folks who would let me do just about anything as long as I move out soon. The only other limitation is having practically no college savings (which I could work around).

I guess my options are:

Ignore college completely, focus on contract-based programming/web development/computer work in the short term, and possibly take over my parent's software company later.

Apply to colleges to please my teachers (hundreds of dollars, weeks of application-filling, essay writing) and not go anywhere.

Apply, accept, attend, and likely drop out after a semester or two.

Apply, accept, force myself to attend four years, have massive debt, and risk being useless in a changing job market.

Take a one year "break" for computer-related work, and if that doesn't work out, apply next year.

Did you stay the 4-year undergraduate course? Did you drop out or never even apply? Do you regret or not regret the experience? Any relevant advice given my non-willingness to go?

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High school senior needs a real-world smackdown